Even 15-minute delays in stroke treatment make huge difference

Every 15-minute delay in delivering tissue plasminogen activator after ischemic stroke robs survivors of about a month of disability-free life, according to a study.

On the other hand, speeding treatment by just one minute means another 1.8 days of healthy life, researchers reported March 13 on the website of the journal Stroke.

Save a minute, save a day is the message from our study, which examined how even small reductions in treatment delays might benefit patients measurably in the long run, Atte Meretoja, MD, PhD, MSc, lead author of the study and associate professor of neurology at the University of Melbourne in Australia, said in a news release.

According to guidelines, tPA to treat ischemic stroke should be given within 4.5 hours of symptom onset. However, the sooner its given, the better the outcome.

The worlds fastest stroke services in Helsinki, Finland, and Melbourne, which were the sites of the study, take an average 20 minutes from hospital arrival to start of treatment, Meretoja said. Most American, Australian and European centers take 70 to 80 minutes.

In this study, we wanted to quantify the importance of speed in the hope that concrete, easy-to-relate-to figures will inspire medical services to measure and improve their game for the benefit of our stroke patients, Meretoja said.

Meretoja and colleagues used evidence from the combined major clot-busting drug trials reported to date. They applied those findings to 2,258 consecutive stroke patients from Australia and Finland to calculate what the patient outcomes would have been if they had been treated faster or slower.

Although all patients benefited from faster treatment, younger patients with longer life expectancies gained a little more than older patients.

In stroke treatment, every minute saved gives patients days of healthy life, Meretoja said. Patients should never wait a single minute for stroke signs, such as face droop, arm weakness or speech disturbance, to go away. They should call for help immediately. Additionally, most emergency medical services and hospitals have the ability to reduce response and treatment delays significantly, and we have described how to do this.

The studys findings are generalizable to the U.S. population, he said.

Stroke is a journal of the American Heart Association. Study: https://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/early/2014/03/13/STROKEAHA.113.002910.abstract

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